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3d Circuit Hears Case on Interaction of Publicity Rights and the CDA

By P.J. D'Annunzio
July 01, 2021

Likening his client's claim to that of an athlete with a monetizable image, an attorney representing TV reporter Karen Hepp, who is suing social media websites over misuse of her likeness, recently argued to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that the case should fit a narrow exception to a federal law that bars suits against online content providers.

Fox 29 News Philadelphia reporter Karen Hepp sued Facebook, Imgur, Reddit and website-operator holding company WGCZ for allowing a photograph of her — surreptitiously taken while she was shopping at a convenience store — to be used on a dating website and in erectile dysfunction advertisements without her consent. U.S. District Judge John Milton Younge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed Hepp's state common law and statutory right-of-publicity claims under the Communications Decency Act (CDA), 47 U.S.C. §230. Hepp v. Facebook Inc., 465 F.Supp.3d 491 (E.D.Pa. 2020).

Section 230 of the CDA states: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." But the CDA provides an exception from this online immunity for claims based on "any law pertaining to intellectual property."

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